What a projection has to show you.

Step zero: is the home operable at all?

This sounds obvious and it is routinely skipped. In Anaheim, the City states that opening entirely new short-term rentals remains prohibited, and that a permit does not survive a change of ownership without a new application within 14 days. In Laguna Beach, short-term lodging is no longer allowed in the R-1, R-2 and R-3 residential districts. In Newport Beach, the permit cap was closed to new applicants when we checked. A projection built for an address with no path is not optimistic, it is void.

Nights available comes before nights sold

Start from 365 and subtract what is actually unavailable. Owner use is usually the largest single deduction and the one most often left out; plan it deliberately with the owner-use worksheet. Then subtract the nights removed by minimum-stay rules. Anaheim imposes a three-night minimum by ordinance, which changes how many short gaps can be filled. Maintenance and turn windows come out next.

Ask what the rate assumption is built on

Ask any manager, including us, three questions about rate. Which properties are in the comparison set, and are they in the same city and the same permit class? How far out is the booking assumed to be placed, since a convention stay and a summer beach week behave differently? And what happens on the dates where the city changes the rules — Newport Beach’s Safety Enhancement Zone weekends, for instance, are not ordinary weekends operationally.

Costs that are specific to this market

Some of the cost line is set by the city and can be read rather than estimated. Transient occupancy tax is local: Newport Beach gives 10% of the lease amount; Laguna Beach gives 14% in total, being 12% City TOT plus a 2% Laguna Beach Tourism Marketing District assessment, filed quarterly even with no rentals. Permit and licence fees are published by each city and change annually. Then add the coastal maintenance premium, which is real and is usually underestimated.

What a good projection looks like

• It names the city, the zone and the permit status it assumes.
• It shows nights available before nights sold, with owner use deducted explicitly.
• It states the minimum stay it assumes and whether that minimum is a city requirement or a commercial choice.
• It separates taxes and statutory fees, which are readable, from operating costs, which are estimates.
• It can be re-run when one assumption changes, without rebuilding the whole thing.

We do not publish occupancy, rate or revenue figures on this site, because any figure general enough to publish would be too general to use. Property-level modelling happens in the Owner Portal against your actual address.